How does a Narc/borderline behave?

I have wanted to know how Narcissism and Borderline go together. I am Borderline, but I can't understand how you can be both. They seem so very different at their cores. How do they coexist? Can someone explain this please?

Well both disorders have some of the same traits. BPD is mainly intense fear of abandonment, splitting, unstable moods....and add in Narc traits like sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, interpersonal exploitation, and there you go. BPD/NPD.

This explains it better than I ever could:

http://gettinbetter.com/dance.html

Both are at core narcissists - in that they believe they are exceptional/unique etc. Both present as ideal partners - the narc just at first; the borderline more long term as they fear abandonment.

The Narc comes dressed up in a grandiose front and seeks worshipping supply. The Borderline comes dressed up with a highly empathetic front and seeks some one who won't abandon them - which usually means someone who is unavailable so there is no *real* abandonment risk. (He's not available to love me; so therefore he can't abandon me as I knew this from the start).

My diagnoses is NPD, but my therapist also told me I had traits of BPD. I didn't meet the full BPD criteria, however. I think the difference between myself and someone with NPD and no BPD traits is, for one, my tendency to get depressed and anxious. I even self/harmed once when I was a teenager, but not for any of the typical reasons you see people saying they do it. It was a way to hurt those that were close to me, intentionally. I also think I put up with more from people than a lot of other people with NPD would, because I become afraid to lose my source of supply or worry that if I do, I may not find one that is as stable or going to last as long. Whenever I've ended relationships or cut ties with people, I've had someone, sometimes more than one someone, lined up to move onto.

I am full narc, with ASPD/borderline traits and I haaaaaate borderline. I hate the depressive moods, the tyrannical outburts, the instability I feel if I didn't have damn borderline I would survive much better, I feel like it's an arrow to the knee.

Then again I think I pity you more, to be just overly emotional all the time with no ego sounds dreadful, like a cold that doesn't go away...so in this I am happier with my narcissism.

How do I behave, I try to stuff and bury the borderline parts of me and well trying to fix the narcissism but that waxes and wanes. I can't self-assess right now so I really have no answer I just am me.

BRI22 wrote:I am full narc, with ASPD/borderline traits and I haaaaaate borderline. I hate the depressive moods, the tyrannical outburts, the instability I feel if I didn't have damn borderline I would survive much better, I feel like it's an arrow to the knee.

Then again I think I pity you more, to be just overly emotional all the time with no ego sounds dreadful, like a cold that doesn't go away...so in this I am happier with my narcissism.

How do I behave, I try to stuff and bury the borderline parts of me and well trying to fix the narcissism but that waxes and wanes. I can't self-assess right now so I really have no answer I just am me.

Tyrranical outbursts? We borderlines are tyrannical? News to me. Though actually I do fancy control

Though that has nothing to do with borderline.

To the OP, what makes you think they can't go hand in hand? Some Borderlines even lack empathy without NPD for instance. The two are similar. My mother has traits of both, but is definitely (now diagnosed) NPD.

The N I know recently claimed to have been diagnosed with Borderline, but who knows if he only said that because he had me in the (re)idealization phase and I told him about my BPD diagnosis from three years ago and we've been interacting for seven years and his BPD had never come up before then.